


Out of Cold and Hunger

by bela013



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bela013/pseuds/bela013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tom left her, Merope nearly gave up. And it was only with her child in mind that she tried to make them both survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The little apartment was empty, the baby kicked as if in protest against the cold, and with the pennies secure in her money pouch, Merope wraps the coat around her middle once more, before venturing out into the cold December air.

The woman never resented how little the magic she possessed was. Until now, that is. With her pitiful skills, she could not secure Tom's place by her side, and with him gone, so was the money to keep her and the child she was caring. It was with an unusual wave of determination, that she choose to leave the place she shard with her husband, even if it was just until the month was done, to try going back home and to beg her father to take her back, or even just her child once she gave birth.

With difficulty, mostly due to the size of her body, Merope boards the old train that could take her to the city where Tom's family house was, from there she could walk to the shabby hut her father lived in. With strength enough to nearly draw blood, she bites into her lips, a childish attempt to hold back the tears that pooled into her eyes.

The muggle world was no place for a witch, even one such as herself, and it was clear that this was a lesson learned the hard way. She needed her father, even if expecting him to scream and punish her from defiling their blood line. But his presence was needed, no one would dare to hurt her or her child if he was a round, for only him was allowed to harm her.

The trip goes in a blink of worry and vain attempts to blend into the background. Through the window, the weather turned, some places were still the color of mud, no matter the white snow from the sky, thanks to the fabrics, as Tom used to say. Some villages were practically ghostly, with the snow covered roof tops and near to no human soul on the streets. Her stop was the next, the one near the end.

Her old worn boots made little sound as she left train and station, and nearly none as the path disappeared and she walked on dead grass. She a lonely dark shadow on that afternoon, the snakes that usually lived there were long gone for the winter, there was the sound of her breath, and none of the silvery songs the snakes usually did when they sensed her near. Maybe they had abandoned her too, after she left them at her brother's mercy. But it's with her own silvery, one that she has long ignored, that Merope thanks the starts from letting the snow fall late this year, otherwise, her walk would be nearly impossible.

" _Don't worry now, little one_." the woman found that talking to the baby soothed him and her both. She had something that was just hers now, no matter the man that helped her put it there, no matter him. Her baby was all she truly had, and she needed no help from her weak magic to make it hers. " _I can almost see the cabin_ "


	2. Chapter 2

The scene playing before his eyes was like something out of a dream, a weird drunken dream. Right in the kitchen table, the only one in the small cabin, sat his sister, with her swollen stomach, and his father, who only stared at her. It was weird that they even let her in, that they didn't kill her in sight, for running away, with a filth muggle no less. But the unusual red in her face and determination in her eyes, even the lazy one, made him call for his father.  
Morfin stayed out side, as father gripped her arm, not nearly in force, only using his fingers to circle onto her arm, and dragged her inside. He had no idea what was being discussed, but all he could hear was the faint sound of hissing. It's been a long time since he last hear her speak parseltongue, not since she was a kid and only knew how to speak like that, always hiding under the table or behind mother's legs.  
It was fury that almost choked him in that moment. Merope was his sister, her blood as pure as his. And he knew that he would have to marry her someday, he knew that since mother made him hold her when she was cooking, when her skull was all but still soft. He could have killed her with a single hand. But Merope was his. His to break and no one else's. He thought her dead and gone, with her pure blood on her muggle lover's hands, when he heard that the filth lord had come back, and without her. But the truth was much worse.  
That man abandoned her, and her child no less. I wouldn't have abandoned her. I would have stayed with her while she was caring my pure child. But now, he was left with the casting offs of a muggle. A broken sister, a ruined baby, an used wife. Was it not enough that he never had something that no one had before? His clothes were the same his father had used, and his wand was his mother's before him and a lot of people before her.  
But he would take her still. Father won't be with them for long, he was a old man, even for wizards standards, and he didn't wish to remain in there by himself, even if all he could have was his sister and that baby that wasn't his. Merope was good with potions, maybe this time they could sell the potions she made, and buy that baby a new wand when the time came.  
Her eye is on him, the good one, and to crown that weird day, she smiled at him. It wasn't a pretty smile, but it was the same one she used to give him when he brought her adders when she was still a child, sitting under the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Any spoken text that is in italics, it is in parseltongue.


End file.
